Tonight the Rangers will look to continue to take advantage of mistakes, nut must forecheck the puck into the Devils zone more. New Jersey will try to take advantage of the young New York defense, while keeping with the gameplan that worked in Game 1, but couldn’t score against Henrik Lundqvist.

The Devils may play more desperate tonight because a 2-0 Ranger lead going into the Garden probably spells certain doom for the merry band from New Jersey.  

And a mea culpa: It was Brendan Shanahan who assisted on Nigel Dawes empty netter rather then Chris Drury. That’s what happens when you see it on the way to the elevator. Thanks to my friend in life and hockey, Patrick Hoffman, for pointing that out.

Tom Renney said Valiquette plays for scheduling purposes, and Henrik Lundqvist will be in Jersey and Montreal.

But tonight the Rangers play the Flyers in a game that hopefully gets the competitive juices flowing as time is ticking away.

“Anything can help,” Renney said. “I would like to think it doesn’t matter, but these are four point games and Philadelphia is playing very well and we have to have the passion to play”

For the lines, Renney is changing the lines once again with Marty Straka moving back with Scott Gomez and Jarmomir Jagr. Sean Avery goes back with his buddy Brendan Shanahan with Brandon Dubinsky centering and Chris Drury will center Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha.

That’s all for now.

And for some Giants news check out NYGMen.com, which I am running for the week.  

 

“[He'll] drive us bananas because he is itching to play,” Renney said. “He’s a few days away from serious contact and there’s still a little bit of pain there. We can rehab him, and he could be day-to-day in two days.”

***

Al Montoya was called up in case Henrik Lundqvist was not ready after coming down with the flu. Based on last night’s perfromance, The King was ready.

***

The line shakeups seems to work very well.

Jaromir Jagr seemed pleased with playing next to Scott Gomez: “From the first time we played together, Scotty is a lot more confident. He’s gotten a lot quicker.”

Gomez on Jagr: “I think that was the problem in the beginning, I was thinking too much,” Gomez said with a laugh. “We get in trouble when we start to think. We’re just a bunch of hockey players.”

Chris Drury and Brendan Shanahan also seemed pleased, although Shanahan wantes to take some time before passing judgement. Said Shanahan: “It was good. I though at a certain point of the game, it seemed like we were getting more special teams shifts together. We killed a lot of penalities. He had a lot of shifts with Nigel [Dawes], but then we couldn’t string them together. It’s tough to gage.”

Scott Gomez will now be centering Jaromir Jagr and Marty Straka with Chris Drury becoming Brendan Shanahan’s pivot. Brandon Dubinsky goes to line No. 3 with Ryan Callahan and Petr Prucha.

Now this makes sense. As long as the Rangers were winning, Renney wanted to leave well-enough alone, but now it’s time to get Jagr a true puck moving center like Gomez and Drury with Shanahan works well too.

Let’s see if it puts more goals in the net tonight.

Sure, he gave up Nik Antropov’s third goal in, but you can’t blame him on that. He came in cold and it was a power play.

But Lundqvist was terrible with rebound after rebound. It almost looked like Henrik and Joel pulled a Parent Trap on Tom Renney.

Anyway for those who are wondering, Henrik was pulled last year four times. Twice [Dec. 3 against the Isles and Dec. 16 at Toronto] in favor of Kevin Weekes and two times [Feb. 17 against Philly when Brendan Shanahan was concussed and Mar. 27 at Montreal] when Valiquette took over.

The Rangers do play tomorrow at Atlanta, so Tom Renney could be wanting to use Hank down south.

Anyway, the Blueshirts did win 5-2 with Brendan Shanahan scoing two, Jaromir Jagr one with Dan Girardi and Blair Betts chipping in as well.

This is a game the Rangers needed. They took advantage of a slumping Ottawa squad while breaking out of their own scoring slump. It’s important to win a game like this because if the Rangers do meet Ottawa in the playoffs, they will want a win or two during the season.

Also by scoring five and spreading it around, the team can rest can gain a little confidence going into a tough stretch in December. Remember, this time last season, they went into a big slump that alomost torpedoed the season.

But that’s done now and now the Rangers have the third most points in the league, two away from the conference top and four from Detroits NHL pacing 36. Oh and the Rangers no longer have the fewest goals in the league. That honor now goes to the New York Islanders.

Who would have thunk that?

On a different note, I am off to Nashville tomorrow to cover the Winter Meetings for Baseball. I will not be at the game on Monday, but John Buro will cover for me. I will be posting on this blog if any Ranger news happens. But if you like baseball and want to know the latest news and notes check out the Amazin Scene and Bronx Scene for all the updates.

See you in a few!!! 

The Isles went to a six round shootout last night beating the now slumping Ottawa Senators and may be tired for the game at the Garden.

But these are the Rangers they are playing and the Isles tend to play up to the Rangers.

As for the lines, Marcel Hossa played on the second line with Scott Gomez and Brendan Shanahan and Ryan Callahan is back on the third line.

As for Avery, no word on how the surgery went but we may have more of a word after the game.

Right now, as I press send, Jaromir Jagr just scored to make it 1-0 Rangers,

Just keeping things up to date.

The Blueshirts seemed very cohesive as a unit on the man advantage, which is something that dogged them on the Island on Wednesday. After that game, both Brendan Shanahan and Tom Renney spoke about special team situations and how they will be worked on. It seemed like it worked.

Joromir Jagr looked strong with three assists and Scott Gomez scored his first goal as Ranger.

Now Shanny was not too happy about it as it looked like it wasn’t a penalty. But it made it even strength.

Then Fedor Tyutin came back at 2:09 of the second to score on a one timer. So it’s 1-1 halfway through.

In the second though, the Rangers picked it up a bit as they forced the puck into the Islanders zone.